His initial release, March, contained his only big pop hit (No Myth) and still stands as his best, most complete effort, but the other discs are very much worth owning and have certainly been spun in countless disc players of mine over the last 15 years. Critics have cited his verbal wit and wordplay (What if I were Romeo in black jeans? / What if I was Heathcliff / It's no myth) and his catchy melodies as strong points, comparing him to other smart writers, including both Lennon and McCartney.Admit it, you had to think about the Heathcliff reference (Wuthering Heights), but once you do, you never forget this song. But the singer, who's a tail-end baby boomer, sounds most often like late-'70s rockers like XTC, Steely Dan, or Elvis Costello, or the better parts of Firefall, Orleans, and the Doobie Brothers. His songs are mostly personal stories and reflections and he'll rock them when needed, but frequently settles into a mid-tempo listening groove, augmented by long-time keyboardist and creative partner Patrick Warren.
The other thing to recognize about Michael Penn is that he's a Californian. He's not a New Yorker or a Southerner, or a Britisher and doesn't carry the centuries-old shoulder chips that so many writers from those localities often drag around. Some argue that the Midwest dialect is the most purely American, others would argue it's the dialect of melting pot California. Second generation L.A., Penn knows that dialect well and gets inside the heads of an oft-neglected side of American life y'know your life that doesn't always include drug deals, alcoholism, crime sprees, or other life-altering violence. He writes about what the thinkers among us do and feel, but unlike in Springsteen songs or Mellencamp songs or hell Bon Jovi songs in Michael Penn songs it's okay to be educated. This isn't to slam the life of a blue collar worker, but the experiences of a college-bred IT employee are just as painful, joyful, and confounding as anyone else's, and Penn is among those few writers who tell us those experiences. Imagine Randy Newman crossing paths with Tom Waits, but with a more classic pop voice and a musical base of folk rock instead of ragtime, and you start to get the idea.
Truth is, Penn could have played Lilith Fair. Yeah, his viewpoints are male, but his sensitivity to nuance and personal thought processes is very female. Invisible from his first disc sums it up nicely: She said that she'd always pegged me as gay / But she only plays for keeps when she plays. Penn was putting his heart, soul, and libido out there long before the term metrosexual was coined, but you can picture the guy making dinner in time for his wife to get home. And you all know that's more common than mainstream America wants us to think it is!
Penn has actor brothers (Sean and Christopher), a film director father (Leo), an actress mother (Eileen Ryan), a singer/songwriter wife (Aimee Mann), and a recent tendency to choose soundtrack work over recording albums or touring. He scored Jennifer Jason Leigh and Alan Cumming's star-studded The Anniversary Party, as well as the Oscar-nominated Boogie Nights, and has placed songs on the soundtrack discs for Godzilla and I Am Sam, among others. He's also produced, although a recent effort with Liz Phair was shelved when Phair decided to rework it. Last fall's Wallflowers' release Breach, was in part a collaboration with Penn, whom friend Jakob Dylan calls "more than thorough and he has a much less loose style than I do." When Penn does hit the road, it's usually on the west coast, so heartland fans have seen precious little of him over the years, but the records are nonetheless worth seeking out.
Penn's 1989 debut, March, is one of my favorite records of all time. There is not a moment wasted on it, from the catchy fear of rejection in No Myth to the road trip reverie of Brave New World to the disconsolately precautionary Cupid's Got A Brand New Gun, Penn finds a dozen ways to work the universal lament, "I just wish I knew what she was thinking!" Trying to read each other's minds has been the downfall of many a relationship and Michael Penn puts it to a catchy pop rock tune on track after track of March. Just when you think the record has given you all the great songs you could possibly hope for, he's got a couple more, ending with the soaring Evenfall.
Free For All is the least accessible of Penn's albums. There is devastating analysis (after the opening track Long Way Down, you're not sure you can even go on), frightening ambiguity (Seen The Doctor), and small town Americana (Coal), but through it all, you feel like you missed a memo about something. A couple of songs meander from their own premises too much, but the high points are still brilliant. Dark is sometimes creepy and sometimes enlightening, and the singer's darkness on his sophomore effort goes both ways.
Penn waited five years before delivering his shortest album Resigned in 1997. By shortest, I'm talking literally about the lengths of the songs. Penn's never been one to engage in Dave Mathews-style jams or Dylanesque (that'd be Bob, not the afore-mentioned Jakob) folk tales with 11 verses, but the compactness in the writing on Resigned is immediately appealing. In Me Around, he sings about the lengths to which his recent ex goes to avoid him ('Rubber door in case I knock' is one of his best lines). You feel the situation, have a couple of verses to sympathize, cross a compelling bridge, catch a nifty guitar hook, and the whole thing's over in 2:28. The theme of the album is embracing the parts of one's being that others find grating or annoying, captured best on the steaming, plodding Selfish: You may find a prince of men / Until then my name is Penn / and I am selfish / I am so selfish.
His most recent record, now four years since release, is called MP4: Days Since A Lost Time Accident. Michael Penn finally puts his worldview and attention to human detail right in the album title. If you work in a manufacturing plant or in the insurance business, you know exactly what he's getting at. The album opens with the Spectorish, anthemic Lucky One, a song about embracing the new millennium that throws a terrific and unexpected tempo change (meaning it slows down) at you in the last minute. Foot Down echoes other mid-tempo gripers from his other albums, but is more playful than earlier efforts and that lightening up pervades the rest of the set, too. This doesn't mean he goes lounge on us, but it means he's taking a few things less seriously, without sacrificing the punch.
RCA released a version of March a couple of years ago that promised bonus tracks, but it's actually a combination of March and Free For All, minus two songs from the latter. I haven't heard it, but since I got these records when they first came out, it doesn't appear that I need to. As of January, a fan site called Bunker Hill (after a Free For All track) reported that Michael Penn's next record will be called Mr. Hollywood Jr., 1947 and should be released soon. If you're new to this guy's music, you should be able to start with March and work your way to MP4 just in time for the new release and then Presto! Instant underrated singer/ songwriter/ guitarist music collection.
